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Aalok_Trivedi
Aalok_Trivedi
January 29, 2021

Fr/Percent units for more control over auto layout content

  • January 29, 2021
  • 214 replies
  • 20236 views

Although I find the new autolayout UI extremely convoluted and overdesigned, the ‘hug/fill parent’ feature is great. However, It would be immensely helpful to have more control over how the elements fill the parent.

Currently, the only option is for the elements to fill the remaining space, but oftentimes, I need certain elements to take up a certain proportion.

Example: I need element-1 to take up 2fr (~66%) and the rest to take up 1fr (~33%). It would be a game-changer if we could use ‘fr’ units.

Framer does this beautifully and it’s vital for efficient, adaptive layout workflows:

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      Wind_Nguy_n_UI_UX_Designer
      Wind_Nguy_n_UI_UX_Designer
      New Member
      August 25, 2025

      +1000000000

        Wolly
        Wolly
        New Member
        September 5, 2025

        4 years later and nothing

        Poliklot
        Poliklot
        New Member
        July 10, 2026

        +1. Percentage sizing is necessary, but web UI workflows also need mixed-unit calculations.

        A percentage alone cannot express reusable layout rules such as:

        calc(50% - 32px)

        for one specific layer inside an Auto Layout component.

        “Fill container” only distributes the remaining space among siblings. It does not let a component author define an explicit sizing rule that combines a percentage of the parent with a fixed offset.

        I described the concrete responsive-web and design-system use case here:
        link to my detailed comment

        This is important for components that need to map predictably to CSS without extra wrapper frames, spacer layers, or breakpoint variants.

        mattaningram
        mattaningram
        New Participant
        July 20, 2026

        Figma does not use CSS for rendering. It’s gonna take them a long time if ever to implement some basic CSS layout features like this. Not to mention this forum is feeling kinda dead lately. Time to move on to other tools that actually use CSS out of the box.

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